NYU’s massive, out-of-scale plan to construct 2 million square feet of new buildings within the Washington Square Village and Silver Towers superblocks is touted by the University as being desperately needed to accommodate its growth. NYU President John Sexton in particular called out the need for more faculty housing.

We have to call this in to question given what we uncovered about an alarmingly large number of vacant apartments and units lost to apartment combinations at Washington Square Village in our report, Disappearing Before Our Eyes.

There were 1296 apartments in the buildings at Washington Square Village when they were constructed in 1960. As of 2011 there were only 1121 apartments.

What accounts for that loss? Why has the number of apartments declined by 14% when NYU is claiming such great need for faculty housing?

NYU has been warehousing apartments for decades to combine them to create large “super apartments.” Our report includes the certificates of occupancies for the buildings as well as more than 40 permits filed by NYU with the Department of Buildings for apartment combinations of warehoused units.

What do we mean by “super apartments?” The floor plans below are for the combination of two nicely sized apartments into one very large 4 bedroom, 3 bath apartment.

And, if you don’t want to take our word for it correspondence from NYU to the Department of Buildings, also included in our report, supports this. Here’s an excerpt below: